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A FOREGONE CONCLUSION

BY

W. D. HOWELLS

Fifteenth Edition.

A FOREGONE CONCLUSION

I.

As Don Ippolito passed down the long narrow calle or footway
leading from the Campo San Stefano to the Grand Canal in Venice, he
peered anxiously about him: now turning for a backward look up the
calle, where there was no living thing in sight but a cat on a garden
gate; now running a quick eye along the palace walls that rose vast on
either hand and notched the slender strip of blue sky visible overhead
with the lines of their jutting balconies, chimneys, and cornices; and
now glancing toward the canal, where he could see the noiseless black
boats meeting and passing. There was no sound in the calle save his own
footfalls and the harsh scream of a parrot that hung in the sunshine in
one of the loftiest windows; but the note of a peasant crying pots of
pinks and roses in the campo came softened to Don Ippolito's sense, and
he heard the gondoliers as they hoarsely jested together and gossiped,
with the canal between them, at the next gondola station.

The first tenderness of spring was in the air though down in that calle
there was yet enough of the wintry rawness to chill the tip of Don
Ippolito's sensitive nose, which he rubbed for comfort with a
handkerchief of dark blue calico, and polished for ornament with a
handkerchief of white linen. He restored each to a different pocket in
the sides of the ecclesiastical talare , or gown, reaching almost
to his ankles, and then clutched the pocket in which he had replaced
the linen handkerchief, as if to make sure that something he prized was
safe within. He paused abruptly, and, looking at the doors he had
passed, went back a few paces and stood before one over which hung,
slightly tilted forward, an oval sign painted with the effigy of an
eagle, a bundle of arrows, and certain thunderbolts, and bearing the
legend, CONSULATE OF THE UNITED STATES, in neat characters. Don
Ippolito gave a quick sigh, hesitated a moment, and then seized the
bell pull and jerked it so sharply that it seemed to thrust out, like a
part of the mechanism, the head of an old serving woman at the window
above him.

"Who is there?" demanded this head.

"Friends," answered Don Ippolito in a rich, sad voice.

"And what do you command?" further asked the old woman.

Don Ippolito paused, apparently searching for his voice, before he
inquired, "Is it here that the Consul of America lives?"

"Precisely."

"Is he perhaps at home?"

"I don't know. I will go ask him."

"Do me that pleasure, dear," said Don Ippolito, and remained knotting
his fingers before the closed door. Presently the old woman returned,
and looking out long enough to say, "The consul is at home," drew some
inner bolt by a wire running to the lock, that let the door start open;
then, waiting to hear Don Ippolito close it again, she called out from
her height, "Favor me above." He climbed the dim stairway to the point
where she stood, and followed her to a door, which she flung open into
an apartment so brightly lit by a window looking on the sunny canal,
that he blinked as he entered. "Signor Console," said the old woman,
"behold the gentleman who desired to see you;" and at the same time Don
Ippolito, having removed his broad, stiff, three cornered hat, came
forward and made a beautiful bow. He had lost for the moment the
trepidation which had marked his approach to the consulate, and bore
himself with graceful dignity.

It was in the first year of the war, and from a motive of patriotism
common at that time, Mr. Ferris (one of my many predecessors in office
at Venice) had just been crossing his two silken gondola flags above
the consular bookcase, where with their gilt lance headed staves, and
their vivid stars and stripes, they made a very pretty effect. He
filliped a little dust from his coat, and begged Don Ippolito to be
seated, with the air of putting even a Venetian priest on a footing of
equality with other men under the folds of the national banner... Continue reading book >>